Martyr's Mirror

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Execution of David van der Leyen and Levina Ghyselius in Ghent, February 14, 1554
Execution of Anneken Hendriks
Dirk Willems saves his pursuer and is burned at the stake in 1569 as a result.

The Märtyrerspiegel documents the history of Christian martyrs from the apostles to the Christians of the 16th century on well over 1000 pages and describes some of their sufferings in detail. The book also contains letters from captured Christians and testaments from executed parents to their children. A special focus is the martyrdom of the Reformation and the Anabaptists mandate threatened Baptist . The actual title of the Martyr's Mirror is The Bloody Scene or Martyr's Mirror of the baptized or defenseless Christians who suffered and were killed for the testimony of Jesus, their Savior, from the time of Christ to the year 1600 .

History of the Martyr's Mirror

The Martyr's Mirror first appeared in Dutch in 1660 . The editor was the elder of the Mennonite community in Dordrecht Thieleman Janszoon van Braght (1625–1664). The forerunners of the book included the first Anabaptist martyrology Het Offer des Herren , published in 1561, and the History of the Martelars published by Hans de Ries in 1615 . The second edition of the Martyr's Mirror appeared in Amsterdam in 1685 and was illustrated with engravings by the Dutch artist Jan Luyken . The second edition was essentially the same as the first. However, it was supplemented by the ongoing persecution of Swiss Mennonites. In Ephrata , Pennsylvania , the Märtyrerspiegel was translated into German for the first time.

The first German translation was completed in 1748. Behind the German edition stood German Mennonites who emigrated to North America who wanted to counter the danger of enthusiasm for war in the American colonies in the run-up to the Seven Years' War . This edition was reprinted in 1780 in Pirmasens in the Palatinate . The first edition translated from German into English appeared in 1837.

In 1699 a Dutch abridged version of the Märtyrerspiegel appeared for the first time in the Dutch town of Haarlem , which was also published in German in 1745 under the title The memory of some holy martyrs .

content

On around 1290 pages, van Braght tells the story of the Anabaptist martyrs, which for him begins with the stoning of Stephen ( Acts of the Apostles , Chapter 7, verse 54ff) and initially ends with Hans Landis , who was executed in Zurich in 1614 for his Anabaptist confession . According to his account, 1396 Anabaptists, a third of them women, fell victim to the cruel persecution by the state and the churches allied with it. In addition, there are the sometimes nameless martyrs of the Waldensians and other movements that the official churches call heretics and heretics . In addition, van Braght tries to show that the decline of it as the biblical seen believers' baptism this ordeal has been cause or reason. For him the Christians who were persecuted and executed for their conviction are the true disciples of Jesus.

See also

literature

  • Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist Movement to the Worldwide Free Church , Großburgwedel 2004 (2nd edition), ISBN 3-88744-402-7 , p. 100ff

Web links

Commons : Martyrs Mirror  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist movement to the worldwide free church. 2nd edition, Großburgwedel 2004, p. 102.
  2. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist Movement to the Worldwide Free Church , Großburgwedel 2004 (2nd edition), p. 101